A grain salad with fruit and nuts is certainly one of my best-received pot luck dishes. I did have my vegetarian chili (no TVP used, either) take third place in a chili-cookoff. I make a dish with millet, cashews, broccoli, raisins, and of course, the ever-present onion, that I've served both hot and cold at pot lucks, and has been well received. A black bean casserole with a cornbread topping was a hit. And once I took Pad Thai, and it went over well. I got lots of compliments about a casserole of pinto beans, cheese, apples, and tomatoes. It's hard for me to post recipes on SparkPeople since I follow recipes so slavishly, and they are usually from books. But my favorite cookbooks are Vegetariana by Nava Atlas, and Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites by the Moosewood Collective.

We have had a few of those meals, most notably my first attempt at raw spinach sauce, which no amount of nutritional yeast could save.

What are some of your dishes that are most popular with omnis? I tend to go with things that are inherently animal-free, like hummus and other bean dips, grain salads, purée soups, and that old standby, fruit salad.

I am very much a recipe-follower. Fortunately, there are relatively few foods I actually dislike, and I don't hesitate to leave them out. I don't cook with eggs, and if a recipe calls for eggs, I don't make it. Most things turn out pretty well. There's been a steep learning curve about what to take to omnivore pot lucks, but now my dishes are generally well-received by all. Occasionally I make something that turns out to be the bland food of the century, and I have to throw it out or resign myself to barely tolerating those meals.

For me, veg and clean went hand in hand. If I eat junk I might as well eat meat. It was truly as health issue. Meanwhile, every good cook has to suck it up, experiment and fail. I am a better-than-domestic-cook, but every once in a while I blow it size large, so bad I can only laugh out loud and throw the mess out. Last week I screwed up pizza from the get-go. I couldn't let it go though and all day I made mistake on mistake. Finally, 8:30 at night I had to give up and order Thai. My husband hates Thai but he didn't argue one word. He knew I was hungry, frazzled and swinging a kitchen knife in a way that is worrying.

Just get one recipe that you like to make. Make double and put half in the freezer. Then try and find another recipe you like. Have the Thai menu handy.

Fairy Tidbits and Dewdrops My ticker was always wrong so I took it off

Hm, that does make it tough. The easiest way to gain that skill is, unfortunately, to cook a lot, sooo, lol... The best advice I can give -- if you want any at all! -- is to think about what purpose an ingredient serves. For instance, if a pasta sauce recipe calls for frozen veggie crumbles but you don't want processed food, substitute tempeh because what you're looking for is that "meaty" texture and bite.

Tell ya what, though, having cooked my way through many omni and herbie years, it's a lot easier to mess up with meat, dairy, and eggs. Plants are pretty forgiving! But, hey, if it's awful, ditch it, and remember never to make that horrible combination again, haha.

my eating vegetarian i s fairly easy but what is not easy is preparing meals without processed foods. I believe that processing is bad, it pumps chemicals into our bodies that were not meant to be there but yet I can't give them up. Partly because I don't know how to cook to begin with. I am not a purest, I am ok with occasional processed foods but I am at a point where I am eating far to much

Good question! I think it depends on what your diet was like before you became vegan or vegetarian. I grew up tagging along with my parents to food co-ops and farmers' markets, and continued cooking with whole foods when I was on my own. The most difficult part about becoming vegan for me and my husband was giving up things like artisan cheese and eggs laid the morning we bought them. We went through a "junk food vegan" phase for a few months, I think more out of excitement over finding packaged items that were vegan, than a desire to actually eat those things. I fully admit, though, that I still really, really, REALLY love Primal Strips and will have one whenever the opportunity presents itself, lol!

I feel fantastic when I am eating a clean vegan diet with lots of raw food, however I don't eat like that all the time because I don't have access to organic fresh food except in the summer. I think it is harder to eat clean all the time, but I think it's really important to try.

what is harder, being a vegetarian/vegan or being a clean vegetarian/vegan. I don't have to much trouble being vegetarian but some of the foods I eat are considered junk food because they are not clean I feel better when I stick to a veg diet but eat to much in the way of processed food breads and such. It is defeating the purpose of the diet. What do you think about this issue

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